


everything has changed

by imjustwriting_cpd



Category: Chicago PD (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:33:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29009832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imjustwriting_cpd/pseuds/imjustwriting_cpd
Summary: Three years of anticipation and curiosity and pushing down feelings she thought she shouldn’t have ever had has led her to this moment.
Relationships: Jay Halstead & Hailey Upton, Jay Halstead/Hailey Upton
Comments: 3
Kudos: 84





	everything has changed

**Author's Note:**

> If you follow me on tumblr, you might remember a few weeks ago when I said I didn’t know if I’d ever write fic again… well that didn’t last because 8x03 happened and I couldn’t stop my brain from thinking about it for the life of me and this is what came of it. This is my take on 8x03 with speculation for 8x04 and lots of feels in between. Also, Everything Has Changed by Taylor Swift was written for Upstead. Enjoy and let me know what you think!

\----

_and your eyes look like comin' home  
all I know is a simple name  
everything has changed  
all I know is you held the door  
and you'll be mine and I'll be yours  
all I know since yesterday  
is everything has changed_

\----

_Gain something, you give something up…_

_Maybe, but not always…_

_It’s been a long time since I saw you as just my partner…_

Three years of anticipation and curiosity and pushing down feelings she thought she shouldn’t have ever had has led her to this moment. This moment where she is kissing her partner and it wasn’t some concoction from her dreams or deepest thoughts or what could have been scenarios. It was real and it was happening and he had kissed her first. 

Neither had anticipated their night turning into what it did. A stop at a local pub to do their thing that always works, to unwind after their long day, to talk about the offer she’d received from the Feds. Now here they were with their lips pressing against one another’s. Jay’s arms around Hailey’s back, her arms around his neck and one of her hands crawling down his chest in slow motion. Her head was fuzzy, a combination of both whiskey and Jay on her lips, and it was sending her into a tailspin. She kisses him back, matching his ferocity with her own after years of holding back how she feels for the man before her. A man who became her partner, then quickly her best friend. One of the few people she had in her life that she knew she could trust completely, and whom she did blindly and without question. 

She felt his arms tighten around her in the slightest of ways, pulling her closer against him despite there being no space left between them. She was flush against him, his hard chest anchoring her in place and keeping her from losing her balance like she had moments ago when he took her by surprise and kissed her in the middle of a slightly crowded bar. 

Hailey couldn’t be sure how long they stood there in front of the tabletop with their lips still exploring and hands gripping tightly. A combination of swallowed moans and slips of tongue that neither could seem to get enough of. A new, but familiar feeling of one another that felt like coming home after a long day on the job. 

It wasn’t time or a need for breathing that broke them apart, rather a loud clearing of a throat and then the sound of a stranger’s voice from somewhere behind them. 

“Hey bro. Why don’t you and your girl get a room or something man?”

The pair breaks apart then, turning and catching the smirks of a group of friends at the table behind them. Jay shakes his head and smiles at them, clearing his own throat before he says, “Yeah, sorry guys. Guess we forgot where we were for a bit.” 

He gives them a quick nod before turning back to face his partner. She had her head tilted down slightly and her bottom lip was pulled between her teeth, but he could see the tint of pink in her cheeks and on the tips of her ears.

“Is Hailey Upton blushing right now?” He couldn’t help, but tease.

Hailey lifts her eyes to meet his and offers him a shy smile. “We just got scolded by strangers for making out in a bar, so yeah, a little bit.”

Jay grins back at her, stepping forward and closing the space between them again. 

“I kinda wanna do it again,” he tells her. 

Hailey raises a perfect eyebrow at him. “The making out or getting scolded?” 

Jay can only roll his eyes at her like she doesn’t know the answer to her own question, but he looks at her with a wide smile and bright eyes. 

“Not a bad idea though,” Hailey says a moment later. 

“What’s that?” He asks. 

He doesn’t miss the way she swallows almost nervously now or how her fingers have begun fiddling with the bottom hem of his shirt beneath his jacket, but she keeps her eyes on him, nonetheless. 

“Us getting a room. My place is closer. I mean, if you want to continue- “

“Yes,” he cuts her off without a second thought and reaches for her free hand that hangs at her side.

He weaves his fingers through hers and gives her a quick squeeze before leading her to the door. The thought doesn’t escape him how right her small hand feels in his much larger one, how their fingers intertwine almost like perfectly placed puzzle pieces. He walks her to her Jeep parked a few spots down from the entrance to the bar and squeezes her hand once more before releasing her so she can open the driver side door. 

“I’ll follow you,” he says and the memory of the first time he said those same words to her flashes through his head. He can’t help the smile that it brings to his face as he realizes how different things are between them now compared to back then. 

Hailey offers him a smile of her own in return and a quick nod as she stands in between Jay and her open car door. She doesn’t miss the double meaning behind his words. She remembers them well. The time when it started going downhill for her. Before she made her mistakes. Before she crossed lines and Voight sent her away in hopes that it would help get her head straight. 

“I’ll see you in a bit then,” she says. 

He only nods, a small smirk peeking out at the corners of his mouth before he leans forward and kisses her slowly. A complete one-eighty to the urgency their lips held just minutes ago inside the bar. 

When he pulls away he’s grinning fully and he just shrugs his shoulders at the look of her wondering eyes. 

“One for the road,” he says with boyish charm to answer her unspoken thoughts.

Hailey lets out a laugh and shakes her head before she turns to get into her car and starts the engine. She watches him through the window as he closes her door, then follows his movements through her rearview mirror as he makes his way towards his truck parked across the street. It’s then she gets distracted by the look of her reflection in the mirror and the wide grin that’s plastered on her face. 

The whole night has felt surreal to her and a large part of her is still unsure about what it all means now. They’ve tipped the scale of their partnership, of their friendship, into uncharted territory. Neither really knowing where they’ll go from here, but she thinks back on his words from just moments ago. 

_I’ll follow you._

She knows he means them in ways not only in the realm of following her home to continue what they’ve started here tonight. He’d follow her anywhere. Just like she would do the same for him without any hesitation. She knows they’ll be okay even though everything has changed now. She knows this thing between them is real. That it isn’t one-sided, that it hasn’t all been a manifestation of overthinking or grasping at straws over the last few years. That he feels it too. 

She clicks her seatbelt on and pulls her car out of its spot, catching Jay flipping a U-turn on the empty street out of her side mirror. A sudden burst of something fills inside of her as she drives home, Jay right behind her. 

Butterflies. Anticipation. Curiosity of what’s to come. She realizes then as she’s driving that she’s still grinning like some love-struck teenager and the nerves overtake her. She knows where the rest of night will lead. She’s a grown woman and it’s not the first time she’s been in bed with someone, but the fact that, that someone is about to be Jay brings that fuzzy feeling back to the forefront of her head in a slightly different way. A tick of nervous energy now clouding her mind, but she shuts it down as soon as it appears because it **is** Jay. 

Partner. Best friend. Confidant. The man who she knows she loves whole heartedly and unconditionally even though she hasn’t yet said the words out loud. 

When they arrive at her place not even ten minutes later, she parks her car quickly in the driveway and waits at the back of it as Jay parks on the street in front of her door. She watches him as he gets out and approaches her, a grin appearing on his face as soon as his eyes meet hers. He doesn’t waste a second before he attaches his lips to hers and she’s kissing him back instantly, her hands going to the back of his head and his finding their way to rest on her waist. 

When they break away, what feels like an eternity later, their foreheads lean against one another’s and Hailey opens her eyes to see him staring right back at her. She can’t help the smile that overtakes her as she takes in his bright green eyes and the freckles on his face and a smile that matches her own. 

“Couldn’t wait ‘til we got inside huh, Halstead?” She teases. 

He shakes his head at her and pulls back just slightly. “I’m gonna wanna do that all the time now.”

“I know the feeling,” she says in an almost whisper.

She releases her hold on the back of his head and reaches for one of his hands before leading him to her front door. Once they’re inside and the door has been locked behind them, it’s nothing, but roaming hands and dueling lips and quick steps to her bedroom. Clothes are pulled off in a hurry to feel more skin and explore freely, and they’re thrown haphazardly in places unknown while the two fall onto Hailey’s bed in a tangled heap. 

When Hailey wakes in the middle of the night - or rather morning, she feels a heavy arm across her naked back. She realizes she’s on her stomach, hair splayed out over pillows, and a lingering buzz of satiation still vibrating through her limbs. She’s facing Jay and watches him as he continues to sleep soundly and she wonders for a moment just how long she can hold her bladder because she doesn’t want to leave her spot in bed next to him. 

Hailey curses herself silently, the need to pee winning out, and she forces herself to slip from the bed as quickly and quietly as she can. She grabs her flannel off the floor and pulls it on before making her way to the bathroom. When she returns a minute later she’s not all that surprised to see her partner awake and sitting up in her bed against the headboard, the lamp from a nightstand table now Illuminating her bedroom in dim light. 

She runs a hand through her messy bed head, bottom lip tucked between her teeth and another shy smile on her face. She climbs back into her bed, tucks her legs under the duvet and leans back against the headboard next to Jay. 

“Hey you,” he says quietly, as if he’s afraid to break the silence between them, albeit however comfortable it somehow feels given what they did through the night. 

“Hey you back,” Hailey nearly whispers, matching his tone. 

She watches him as he watches her, a thousand thoughts running through both their heads, but neither knowing quite where to begin. He surprises her though when he gets right to it, seemingly not afraid to start the conversation they know they need to have. 

“So, we kissed.” 

Hailey almost rolls her eyes at his bluntness, but instead nods. “Yeah, we did.”

“We kissed a lot. Among other things,” he says with a smug look on his face. 

Hailey blushes for the umpteenth time that night and it’s then that Jay realizes it’s a look he loves to see on her. Her flushed cheeks and the shyness on her face are something new and he can’t help smiling at her, almost cockily, because he knows he’s the one that has brought out this side of her. It’s a side of her he wants to see again and again. 

The only thing she can offer him is another short nod. And then, “Mmhmm, we did that too.”

“Where’s your head at Upton?” He asks her a beat later.

The nervous tone his voice carries doesn’t go unnoticed and as much as the best friend-partner sides of her would love to tease him, she doesn’t and chooses instead to go for complete honesty. 

“Cloud nine,” she replies. 

He raises an eyebrow, that cocky grin still on his face. 

“Still?”

“What can I say, you made a lasting impression,” she tells him with a smirk now as her shyness dissolves and her usual bold self returns. 

He laughs then, eyes bright and a residual smile on his face, causing her to grin wider because his laugh has become one of her favorite sounds aside from the guttural moans she’d been privy to just a short while earlier.

He reaches an arm out to her, his hand quickly finding hers, and he holds it tight. Fingers twining together perfectly again as his eyes stare right into hers. 

“You’re not the only one that it’s been a long time for ya know? I can’t tell you the exact moment because there have been a lot of them between us, but I’m in this. Completely. I want you to know that Hails.”

It isn’t lost on her that it’s the first time he uses the nickname. How quickly things have changed between them, but how normal it all still feels somehow. Like they’ve been doing this for forever. 

As Hailey takes in his words she can feel the tears forming in her eyes. She can recall on one hand the number of times he’s really seen her cry and hearing those words come out of his mouth is just about euphoric to her. She knows they’ve both been here before with people they work with and she knows they’ve both been cracked open and left empty because of it. But she also knows how hard it is for him to show this side of himself. To be vocal about his feelings and what he wants. 

She already knew he felt the same way as her. The events that night that led them to him being naked in her bed prove that on their own, but hearing him say those words out loud puts an ache in her chest. The best kind of ache. Because she’s shown again just how real all of this is between them. It's the kind of real that crushes you and splits you wide open all at the same time. The kind of real that you feast on, but it always leaves you starving. The kind of real that pulls the breath right out of you, but somehow still keeps you high all day long. 

Hailey finds herself speechless, afraid her voice will break if she speaks, so she keeps her eyes on his, nods along and squeezes his hand to let him know she hears him. That she gets it. That she’s in it too.

When she finds her voice a moment later, Hailey takes a deep breath, still caught up in the moment and the confession Jay made and the way she can quite literally feel the electric current between them as his hand stays clasped together with hers. 

“I meant it earlier when I said you make me better,” she tells him. 

He keeps his eyes on her, but stays quiet. He knows her well enough by the look on her face she has more to say so all he does is squeeze her hand again, a silent nudge to continue. 

“I know it won’t be easy, Jay,” she starts, taking another deep breath before she continues. “I’m not naïve enough to think it would be and I know we’ve both been down this road before and it hasn’t worked out well for either of us, but I also know the only regret I’d have about this is not giving it a real shot.”

Her tears have long since fallen and she uses the back of her free hand to wipe at her eyes trying to reel in her emotions. The weight of the situation and the implications are making everything that much heavier. More real. There’s a tiny part of her that wishes they could just bypass this slightly awkward, but quite necessary conversation and put it to bed for another time that’s not near five in the morning after the first time they’ve slept together. 

And then, as if reading her mind, Jay lets go of her hand and brings his up to the side of her neck. His hold is gentle as his thumb traces over her skin and he leans forward to press his lips to hers. It’s the slowest, most tantalizing of kisses, as if he’s trying to convey every single thing he feels for her inside of him into this one moment. And she reciprocates with steady brushes of her lips and tongue against his as her arms reach for him almost on autopilot. One wraps around his neck and the other around his waist, and then she’s pulling him on top of her and holding him tight against her with her legs around his hips. He holds himself over her, keeping most of his weight off of her and on one arm, while his other hand is traveling down the side of her body. He drags his lips from her mouth to her cheek, down her jaw and to her neck, placing tortuously slow kisses across her skin. 

He’s just about to reach for the buttons of her flannel when there’s a loud vibration that sounds through the room. It’s followed by a succession of ringing and they both freeze, hoping it’s a one off, until another phone goes off in the same fashion and they know that duty is literally calling.

Jay groans out against her neck in obvious annoyance, but doesn’t protest when she moves a hand to his chest and presses it firmly against him. He knows they have a job to do, so he drops one final kiss below her ear before rolling off of her to the empty side of her bed and reaches for his boxers on the floor. He stands and pulls them on, then makes his way towards his jeans by the door to fish out his phone from the front pocket. He gives a quick look through it before looking over at Hailey. 

“It’s Kev. We got a homicide,” he tells her as he begins typing out a response to the officer. 

Hailey nods once and then she’s off the bed to get dressed while Jay pulls on his jeans and goes to find his shirt. 

“Think anyone will notice I’m in the same clothes from yesterday?” She hears him call out to her while she’s in the bathroom. He can hear her laugh from the half open doorway and then she’s in front of him in a fresh pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. 

“It’s early so maybe not. Just zip your jacket up all the way and we should be good,” she tells him as she steps out of the bathroom. 

He nods in agreement and less than five minutes later the pair are ready to leave, but Jay stops her in front of the door with a teasing smile on his face. 

“What is it?” She asks him. 

“How is it, in the last few years of us working together and being as close as we are, I don’t have a change of clothes here at your place?”

His question catches her off guard, but makes her wonder the same thing. All the time they’ve spent together and the checking in, and them doing their thing that works after a long day or tough case or just because. 

All she offers him is a shrug and a small smile before she says, “Guess we’ll have to change that.”

He takes a step towards her and reaches a hand inside her jacket to clutch her waist. His fingers sneak below the hem of her sweatshirt until he feels warm skin and he pulls her closer to him. He lifts his other hand up to her face and around the back of her neck before leaning down and kissing her. She kisses him back instantly, her own hands finding their way to his chest, gripping tight to his jacket. They get lost in the moment for several beats, enjoying the new, but familiar feel of their lips moving against each other. 

Hailey pulls back first despite her body screaming at her not to. She wants more than anything to pull him back against her and kiss him some more, but she’s always been more of the voice of reason despite her previous acts of crossing lines and she knows they have a job to do. 

“We gotta go,” Hailey reminds him and he nods in reply before releasing her completely. 

“We’ll finish this later,” she promises.

“Hell yes we will,” he tells her and she can’t help rolling her eyes this time, but she smiles at him, nonetheless.

They head out the door, Hailey locking up behind them, and the pair walk side by side out to his truck. They’re headed to Garfield Park which takes less than fifteen minutes with the truck’s flashing lights and the near empty streets given the early morning hour and a global pandemic. There’s a stupid grin stuck in place on her face again since the moment Jay put the truck in drive and then reached for her hand across the middle console. There’s another moment where she thinks this newfound intimacy and the way he holds her hand has become another of her favorite things. He weaves his fingers through hers and doesn’t let go until he pulls up to the crime scene. 

“Ready partner?” He asks as he kills the engine and looks over at her in the passenger seat. 

“Yeah, you?” She counters. 

“Let’s get to work,” he says throwing a wink at her. 

The pair hop out of the truck and make their way over to their Sergeant, sharing a quick glance between them as the rest of the team show up in near synchronicity. They’re filled in on what’s going on and as they all fan out after being given their marching orders, Hailey can’t deny the familiarity that once again comes over her as her and her partner work side by side like the last several hours didn’t even happen.

It’s another reassurance that they’ll be okay. That they’ll make it. That as much as everything has changed between them, their thing that has always worked hasn’t changed one bit.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for taking the time to read! :)


End file.
